Commonwealth Development Corporation Bill — Report on Use of Other Countries' Financial Instutitions Before Increasing Funding Cap — 10 Jan 2017 at 16:15

The majority of MPs voted against requiring any proposal to increase the cap on Commonwealth Development Corporation funding by secondary legislation to be accompanied by a report on the CDC's use of separate financial centres where countries do not have sufficiently robust regulatory environments for their own financial institutions to be used; on the transparency and accountability of those financial centres and on the progress made in precluding the need for the use of separate financial centres.

MPs were considering the Commonwealth Development Corporation Bill[1].

The proposed new clause rejected by the majority of MPs in this vote was titled: Condition for exercise of power to increase limit: analysis of use of separate financial centres and stated:

“After section 15 of the Commonwealth Development Corporation Act 1999 (limit on government assistance), insert—

“15A Condition for exercise of power to increase limit: analysis of use of separate financial centres

(1) The Secretary of State may only lay a draft of regulations under section 15(4) before the House of Commons if the Secretary of State has previously laid before Parliament an analysis on the use of separate financial centres.

(2) An analysis under subsection (1) shall consider and report upon—

(a) the countries in which CDC invests which do not have a sufficiently robust regulatory environment for its financial institutions to be used;

(b) the prospects for countries identified in accordance with paragraph (a) to cease to be in that category;

(c) the separate financial centres used for investments intended for countries identified in paragraph (a);

(d) the criteria used for determining the use of the financial centres identified in paragraph (c), and

(e) the Secretary of State’s assessment of the extent to which the financial centres identified in paragraph (c) comply with the standards of transparency and accountability in tax matters with which the United Kingdom complies.”

The rejected new clause was accompanied by the following explanatory statement:

This new clause would require any proposal to increase the limit by secondary legislation to be accompanied by an analysis of the CDC’s use of separate financial centres where countries do not have sufficiently robust regulatory environments, the transparency and accountability of those financial centres and the progress made in precluding the need for the use of separate financial centres.

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